This article reports a case study that investigated the ways in which heads of subject departments managed the development and application of new assessment strategies in one secondary school in Hong Kong. The data of the study were gathered through participant observation and interviews with 12 teachers who participated in an assessment for learning project in the school. The results show variation in the leadership approaches adopted by the department heads, highlighting the dichotomy between managerial accountability and professional empowerment as their perceived mandate, and techno-instrumentalism and autonomous explorations as their visions for school-based renewal initiatives. The findings of the study highlight the subcultures within subject departments resulting from the different leadership styles enacted by the subject leaders, and point to the need for further investigations into the mediating roles of culture of subject disciplines and contextual variables that shape the dynamics of educational management.
[Copyright of International Journal of Leadership in Education: Theory and Practice is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2012.672654]

This study extends investigations into 2 areas: Ease of use in the environment and markers' acceptance of On Screen Marking (OSM) in the Hong Kong public examination context. In contrast to previous studies where there was a single focus, this study comprises a heterogeneous approach. The sample contains scripts from three subjects (English, Chinese, and Liberal Studies). Scripts comprised essays and short-answer questions, as well as scripts written in either English or Chinese. Two scales assessing the ease of use and markers' acceptance of OSM were investigated from a Rasch measurement perspective; with both scales showing good psychometric properties. The findings revealed that markers generally had a high level of perceived ease of use in the environment and the overall acceptance of OSM was positive. Differences of person measures across language, question type, and subject were compared, and the implications of the two scales for future research are briefly discussed.
[Copyright of Educational Research & Evaluation is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13803611.2013.793604]

The Wallach-Kogan Creativity Tests were translated into Chinese and later fully computerized for research in Hong Kong. The normative data of two cohorts (1994 and 2002) of school children were employed to test the hypothesis that growth in creative thinking occurs in a society or culture during a period of education and curriculum reforms that emphasize creative thinking. Results of multivariate analysis of variance and subsequent univariate analysis of variance supported the hypothesis. Moreover, some interesting gender differences in creativity growth were observed, underlining the fact that boys and girls should be treated differentially to obtain a desirable creativity growth for them.
[Copyright of Creativity Research Journal is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Medical Teacher. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2013.843916]

The aim of this study is to assess the cross-cultural applicability of the Chinese version of the Inventory of School Motivation (ISM; McInerney & Sinclair) in the Hong Kong context using both within-network and between-network approaches to construct validation. The ISM measures four types of achievement goals: mastery, performance, social, and extrinsic goals. A total of 697 high school students participated in the study. Results of the within-network test showed that the ISM had good internal consistency reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the hypothesised four-factor structure. In addition, multigroup confirmatory factor analyses showed factorial invariance across students of different genders, year levels, and school types. The between-network test indicated that the achievement goals assessed by the ISM correlated systematically with different aspects of students' self-concepts. These findings provide evidence of the applicability of the ISM among Hong Kong Chinese students. Implications for cross-cultural research are discussed.
[Copyright of International Journal of Testing is the property of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15305058.2012.656162]